Flogging a Dead Horse by Apryl Lee

Ray had a thing for war, so I brought him to Gettysburg for the reenactment. It was hot and crawling with history buffs in period dress, and tour groups led by hippies. And kids, lots of kids with muskets. Before the main attraction, we stopped at the Live Fire! demonstration and plugged our ears as soldiers launched mortars into the sky. Blasts ripped through steel drums, sending gallons of bloody red water flying. Enemy shacks exploded in oranges and pinks and cottony plumes of smoke.
     “They actually blow shit up!” Ray shouted at me, pleased, as the audience applauded. We held hands and moved with the crowd to the battle. It was the first time we had held hands during the day.
     I met Ray at the Sunglass Shop. I sold him a lens cloth. He had square shoulders and ill-fitting, hand-me-down clothes. When I got off work at eleven, we took a walk and made out in a lifeguard stand.
     I told him, “Had I been old enough, I would’ve voted for Ross Perot.”
     He said, “That guy was right about the deficit.” Then he told me how he was engaged to a girl called Annalee.
     “Well,” I said, “thanks for respecting me enough to let me know.” Then I went down on him.
     I liked Ray. I liked that he kept a picture of himself and his dad tucked inside his wallet. Everyone in town knew about Ray’s dad. Mick stole people’s garbage and liked to wander naked around town in flip-flops—which somehow made Ray more interesting for me.

     A shell screeched across the field, and Farnsworth’s Fatal Charge began. The Union battalion was surrounded. Mounted soldiers, sabers drawn, were shot from their saddles. Horses reared up. Blasts echoed. The performance was precise, each actor hitting his mark to take his bullet. Smoke burst from their costumes. Some grabbed their necks, breaking palmed blood packs. Farnsworth died with his sword raised to the sky, historically inaccurate but a nice touch. Dramatic.
     Before our trip, I had dug out my old history notes from college. The whole thing was desperate and tragic, and I told Ray, “Farnsworth knew there was no chance of winning, but someone called him a coward, so he went through with it.”
     Ray nodded, said he understood. “Guys are like that.”
     “All of them knew they were going to die, but they rode in anyway. That’s kind of honorable, isn’t it? Don’t you think?”
     “I guess.”
     “You know all the soldiers smoked weed, don’t you?” That fact was written in my notes next to a To Do list that included buying an eighth and making a mixed tape.
     We stopped at a souvenir stand where Ray bought a Gettysburg lapel pin and a Union soldier penguin. He was sly about the penguin, and waited till I’d stepped away to buy it, then smothered it in plastic bags. It was sweet that he remembered how I used to collect penguins, and how they all burnt up in a fire.
     The sky crackled and opened, so we took shelter under a tent where we learned to make butter. Ray kissed me and stuck the pin on my shirt. We were official. I slid my fingers between his. The historian at the dash churn, a round, blotchy-faced girl said, “Over-churning the butter, can ruin the taste.” She eyed us like she knew Annalee and was going to rat us out, tell her “Raymond is keeping a mistress.”
     I imagined myself being an actual long term mistress: wearing big sunglasses; rendezvousing at chic hotels; pulling my hair into a French twist after martinis and lovemaking; being kept, like a precious thing in the back of a drawer. He’d love me more—you always love the things you hide.
     And he did love me more. After all, he wasn’t cheating on me.
     I waited to be presented with the penguin. A little lovey I would name and sleep beside and whose daily adventures I would report to Ray; our little one. But he seemed to be saving it. A surprise.
     I led him out into the slowing rain. We peeked into the field hospital where men screamed in pretend agony. It sounded like sex. Ray said, “We have to get home.”
     We stopped holding hands as we walked to my car.
     Ray bounded over a thick, muddy puddle. “That horse was supposed to die. It was Farnsworth’s favorite horse and it got shot. Doesn’t that suck?”
     I didn’t know if Ray was referring to the death of a favorite horse or the error in the reenactment. Either way, it seemed that the undead horse put a damper on his experience, and I felt at fault for not researching the authenticity of those particular facts.
     I said, “Sorry.”
     Ray placed the smothered penguin under the seat, carefully; it wasn’t ours.
     I waited until I pulled onto the highway and then asked about her.
     He told me how he proposed. How he rode on a fire truck to her house.
     “It was a whole big thing.” Apparently, it was in the newspaper.
     He opened his wallet past the picture of himself and his nut-job dad on a merry-go-round and unfolded the article. “See?”
     “I can’t, I’m driving,” and also, I didn’t want to see her. “Are you excited to get married?”
     “I guess.”
     “Why were you on a fire truck?”
     “I’m a volunteer fireman.”
     I cried, just to see what he would do.
     He said, “Don’t.”
     I decided I would send an email to the organizers of the reenactment condemning them for the inaccuracy concerning the horse and, therefore, ruining our time. I would post nasty comments on their social networking pages and write negative reviews online, giving it one, perhaps two out of five stars. I would call the Historical Reenactment Regulation Board and report them. But I knew it wouldn’t do any good. It was an impossibility. I mean, how would they have faked the death of a horse?

Apryl Lee

Apryl Lee lives in New Jersey with her husband, baby son and a bunch of cats. She occasionally blogs at www.apryllee.com and she is thrilled to have this story included in Word Riot. “Flogging a Dead Horse” is part of a larger work of connected stories. She has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence.

• 
• 
• 

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•